Columns

This past week during our first district work week of the 113th Congress, we had the opportunity to visit Danville and Blairs, and to make our first official visits in Warrenton. Many miles may separate Danville and Warrenton, but it is clear that those all across our district share a common concern with our nation’s unsustainable debt.

You don’t have to be a budget analyst or an accountant to know that out of control spending is the “driving force” behind the debt crisis. As the 113th Congress gets into full swing, unrestrained spending remains one of the greatest threats to our nation.

With ceremonies reflecting traditions accumulated over the course of centuries, Virginia’s General Assembly convened for its 2013 session this week. Although this year’s session is scheduled to last just 46 days, it is already apparent that major issues will be discussed and debated.

Why does anyone need an assault weapon?
All you have to do is look at history. Governments and religion have shown repeatedly that people will commit genocide and crush someone else’s Rights that we are supposed to hold dear. The problem with Americans is we live in a fairly peaceful society and haven’t had a war here in a long time, thankfully.

Anyone with a good sense of the political climate has to realize that, as amazing as it may be, the ground may be shaking under the historically powerful NRA (National Rifle Association).
The gun lovers group has long been as good at propaganda as the late Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels; its power over Congress has been similar to that held by Hitler over the Germans, and based, of course, on the same thing: fear.

We haven’t fallen off the fiscal cliff, yet. In a last minute deal Congress enacted a deal, and President Obama signed it, that reduced the tax hit that Americans would have suffered if all the Bush tax cuts had been allowed to expire. The deal let the cuts expire for those making $400,000 per year or more and all working people have seen smaller pay checks because a temporary cut in the payroll tax, that funds Social Security, expired.

As the 113th Congress was gaveled into session on Thursday, the new boundary lines of the Sixth Congressional District were made official. Every ten years, the boundaries of congressional districts are altered to reflect changing populations throughout the Commonwealth.

We seem to have survived one “fiscal cliff” scare, only to have other cliffs ahead of us. It’s the way government is done when one party is driven by ideologues and the other thinks mostly of compromise.
On March 1, dramatic cuts will take place in both social programs and military spending if Congress does not act.
Congress will certainly act; probably at the last minute, and to the disappointment of many. Again, such are the times that we live in.

Much as I complain about President Barack Obama, I always have to admit that it could be much worse. Russia is an example of “much worse.” Back in the 1990s and up into the first few years of this century I had hopes that the Russians would finally have a democracy, but it seems that they’ve ended up with a tsar instead. I’m referring to Tsar Vladimir I.
Perhaps expecting a country to transition easily from Soviet tyranny to a democracy was too much to hope for.

It appears that we will have a major legislative battle in the New Year over gun control, a surprising development made possible only by the horrifying details of the latest gun massacre in Connecticut.
We’ve tolerated these incidents for many years now, but when it comes to someone storming through an elementary school and murdering first-graders, using a weapon only the military should possess, well, that’s the stuff that should change hearts and minds.